I know, CV is just being moronic this morning (a phenomenon which is often unavoidable)... But, you know, you have to SEIZE THE DAY and there's nothing much to really SEIZE these days (based on my understanding of the word "seize")...

seize [seez]–verb (used with object)
1.
to take hold of suddenly or forcibly; grasp: to seize a weapon.
2.
to grasp mentally; understand clearly and completely: to seize an idea.
3.
to take possession of by force or at will: to seize enemy ships.
4.
to take possession or control of as if by suddenly laying hold: Panic seized the crowd.
5.
to take possession of by legal authority; confiscate: to seize smuggled goods.

Looking at the markets and the economy these days, one ban begin to understand why (although the latter two definitions ought to arrive at out doorstep at some point or another)...

So since there is not much to seize, let's get back to the subject of PORK BELLIES...

So I guess "Chicks Can't Do Math" (Larry Summers) was really the man, behind the woman, behind the man, after all... When interviewed about the truth to such speculation, Summers leaned over and replied...

I fart in opposite your general direction

Why is it that the only two that are smiling in what "looks" to be a police interrogation room, are the first ones who are abandoning spaceship Obama?

Why would anyone one want to leave in the middle of this blistering RECOVERY? I mean, surely accolades & awards for such an enormous feat of accomplishment should be just around the corner... Right? I mean, there are Nobel Prize awards just a few months away... You should be standing in line to receive yours like this guy...

“It’s absolutely clear that you need a second round of stimulus,” Stiglitz said. “It needs to be better designed. It needs to be focused more on returns on investment, education, infrastructure, technology. And if you do those kinds of high- powered investments, the long-term national debt will be actually lower and the growth in the future will be higher.”

“Unfortunately, with savings going up to 5, 6, 7 percent, aggregate demand is going to be weak,” he said. “The only thing to fill it is government.”

Let's see... CV was just commenting yesterday about the ROI (return on investment) on education...

What you pay today, and what one might expect the ROI on eventual wages & salaries, going forward, to be (and the amount they will be TAXED on those wages - the SOCIAL SECURITY deduction & the idea that they will probably never receive the social security payment when all is said & done)...

"Her bachelor’s degree in game art and design cost $70,000 in tuition and fees. After she graduated in December 2007, she found a job that paid $12 an hour recruiting employees for video game companies. She lost that job a year later when her department was shuttered."

"These days, Howard, 26, makes her living in a way that doesn’t require a college diploma: by stripping at the Lido Cabaret, a topless club in Cocoa Beach, Florida. “I didn’t know what else to do,” she says. “I’ve got a worthless degree. It’s like I didn’t attend school at all.”"

Maybe CV should be a guidance counselor?

So whatever... people... I now return you to your CAPITALISTIC endeavors (which include watching the government shred documents announce reports, and all the red and green candles that that produces)...

Meanwhile... Regardless if the NFP report looks bad/good or sugarcoated, you can go into the weekend and sleep soundly knowing that since Romer is returning to Berkeley, that's considered a "new position" in academia is ANOTHER JOB SAVED BY THE STIMULUS...

of course the fed tries to do what you say, MBS is not the stock market, but I figured that'd be the example. In any event.....if the thoughts are they are doing it but probably won't be able to make it work, this conversation is about as valuable as the one about a double dip recession. 2 50% drops inside of 10 years and people still talk about how interested the government and the Fed are in propping the stock market up, maybe they aren't interested enough.

I did misread your statement a bit, I'd been drinking for about 7 hours straight when I read that...yikes, in any event, the discussion is a waste of time.

"think what you want"

you too, and seriously man, don't take any of that stuff personal, I simply hate the Fed and everything about them and in the last month I've heard enough theories about what they are doing and what they can do, the vast majority of which have no place in reality, to last me an entire lifetime.

and to be fair, I do believe one of their mandates is price stability, but again, they seem to fail miserably at that, and I'm certainly not just talking about stocks or bonds.....

to be clear, never once have I denied that they will attempt to stop any problems in markets, I claimed they would do this until the bitter end, was never in denial about that, where I seem to part ways with most is that I don't easily accept that the might Fed can overwhelm market forces, and facts seem to be on my side here and I don't buy the theory that the entire market rally was due to the Fed, plenty of people bought this rally....like me, plenty of mf's, plenty of mutual funds, plenty ken fischers and barton biggs and John Paulson's and Brian Wesbury's out there.

hope everyone enjoys the employment soap opera this morning, I know whatever happens it will be unexpected.

yes, I do agree that it is their goal and that they have a lot of different tools to try and make it happen, not denying that at all, I just don't think they have control over much of anything markets, they are just reacting doing the best they can but they can, and have been, overwhelmed.

as for the rally last year, look beyond stocks my man, basically every single asset class rose and not just here but all around the world, they didn't buy em all up, and you already know the markets are exchanges, not hot air balloons.

also, the banks sat on most of that cash as they continued to bleed heavily and hide it with accounting nonsense that we refer to as "earnings"

the description that what they did caused or created conditions for a run up in stocks is a description of an efficient market, where the net react appropriately to outside events.

on another note, we ended up in the front row last night for KOL which was pretty exciting because I've never gotten that close to a band that had gotten big. I wish I could properly describe their faces when they played Sex On Fire....I felt bad for them, they looked as though they were so sick of playing that song. They didn't play very long and I only counted 1 new song, was an ok show, the fame seems to be getting to them, they played for several hours the first time I saw them in 2004. they did have fireworks at the end though, that was pretty rock-starish.

also, there is no deflation impact yet in the price of concert beers ($9.50 for a Silver Bullet) or generic band t-shirts ($45), all I have left is my ticket stub and wristband and a massive headache this morning....

@6.51 "I'd been drinking for about 7 hours straight when I read that"...ha it wasn't many hours ago, hope you'll get a chance for a bit more of a recovery than that, I'd be useless for days if I drank that long!

Anyway refreshing to hear that one of us is having a flutter on the long side, I'm starting to think shorting equities is a mugs game (not that Ive tried mind you,but "supportive" govt announcements seem almost guaranteed whenever conditions for shorting seem most tempting).

Regulators tried to reassure financial markets about "stress tests" ordered on Chinese banks' real estate lending, saying Friday they do not represent official views of where the market is headed or any impending policy change.

I wonder if a stress test would ever be orchestrated if the results weren't known in advance?

The unemployment rate was unchanged at 9.5 percent in July for a second straight month, just below market expectations for a rise to 9.6 percent. The steady jobless rate largely reflected a drop in the labor force as discouraged workers gave up the search for jobs.

always a silver lining- as more and more workers give up the search for unemployment the unemployment rate will go down-

morning! hey.. you know some of those jobs are never coming back and some of those jobless will be forever out of the workforce.. they will make do with less and/or take care of their own d*mn children! (CV, I think some of your feistiness rubbed off on me : )

ben.. the show sounds disappointing! hope they got into at least some of their songs..

I think probably with the jobs data today the interesting development from my view is how many jobs might be cut from state and local gov over the next few quarters. While private sector showed what it did, the longer term trend in private unemployment we all know, government jobs have grown quite a lot, is this the start of the reversal there?

Ahhh, glad to see that my 18 number 1134 wasn't hit this week... so far.

@ KarenBeen working at LAX for the last couple of days before I head up to Visalia for a couple of weeks, and want to ask ya... Is that "June Gloom" I see every day? It just hangs in the air for most of the morning, and sometimes in the afternoon. Can I breathe it? LOL

Also, had to drop off some paperwork in Huntington Beach, to me, didn't look like a recession was going on it that city! Drove through Aliso Viejo... nice area! (looks very expensive tho!)

2.84% on the 10y, so the 2.90% area is now upside resistance for TNX. LB doesn't believe in triple bottoms, not surprised to see 2.90% break down, Gross is dead right on the long end and the yield curve will flatten.

18! you were so close to me.. Aliso Viejo on the toll road? Expensive is along the coast.. Newport coast would astound you. Sun came out along the coast in the afternoon.. we haven't even had a summer this year.. very very cool.. and that near constant June Gloom!

bruce -from last evening's thread..., excellent 4 rules!"Second, live beneath your means" especially resonates, a primary value of my parents (children/y.a.'s of the gd) which i internalized from the get-go and, unfortunately later in life, had underscored by the domestic relations laws of ohio.as to your "thinking of investing 7 figures in the near future," what's the ticker symbol for that?

Bond markets are key. Oddly enough, if we ever got a strong jobs number, the front end would run and hide and equities would FALL. That's what Team Macro Man were on about yesterday. But in The New Nipponized USA? Not going to happen....

@ Karen,Didn't take the toll road, saw it 73? 76? and a 243? something like that but went down the 405. On the way back to Manhattan Beach somehow we went west to PCH then drove that... whew, took forever but a nice slow drive enjoying everything. Today the guys I'm with want to go to Redondo(sp) Beach area for lunch. I'll walk onto the beach and wave @ ya! (but don't think you live very close to RB.)

Sell into the close today, then we would be shorting Treasuries there.

Can't imagine putting new money to work here, Bruce.

What would you buy? Stocks and bonds are not cheap.LB would buy into clean new finance companies.Investing in smart individuals is the way to go.Provided this government stops protecting bankrupt corporations.

Credit was all about taking the short-cut to the good life; but as America has forgotten and must re-learn, there is no short-cut to the good life; it must be earned via sacrifice, personal integrity, accountability and transparency. Everything else is illusion.

"The Cabinet is planning a national asset management company that would pool bad loans and convert borrowers into renters with the government as the new landlord"what is the hungarian for "fannie & freddie"?

after seeing the WSJ article and reading some of the comments, I'm just glad to know I, or we, are not the only ones questioning repeated market aberrations..

and how do you explain this, really?

"I was struck by a contrast between a bond and a stock this week, which speaks to a recurring theme of recent conversations with some of our Great Investors. IBM sold three-year notes on Monday at a record low interest rate (for 3-year notes) of 1%. As The Wall Street Journal pointed out that was just 0.30 percentage point more than the yield on three-year Treasury notes. But what struck me was that IBM’s stock with its $2.60 annual dividend is yielding nearly twice what the bond is offering. As ClearBridge Advisor’s Hersh Cohen asked on WealthTrack recently, where is the long term value and where is the risk? Will you do better investing in the bond, or the stock with its history of annual dividend increases?" (Consuel Mack)

Bruce, Warren and his wife visited across the street recently.. she came in a bright pink sweat suit or something comparable.. i think he met her in a donut shop.. anyway, my friends (employees of estate) said they were both delightful.. of course, when you are one of the richest women on the planet, you don't need to put on airs !! they came with bill and melinda.. a garden tour i believe.. my friends had to wait on everyone : )

I used to dine with the owners of the estate myself when I was married.. LOL.. as a matter of fact.. I was the last one to leave his 75th birthday luncheon.. he sat there opening the gifts while his lovely wife and I continued imbibing.. I wrote down who gave what but could hardly read my writing the next day...to be expected after Steven (my chef friend that now works for the golfer) switched me over to tequila and tonics!

We would be sellers of Ts ahead of next week's auction - unless a large sinkhole opens up at Broad and Wall, swallowing up entire buildings and reducing effective leverage of prop desks and hedge funds...

The increased discounting that began in June and continued last month is reminiscent of the troubles that plagued retailers during the worst of the recession.

"We're back to a game of chicken between consumers and retailers over discounts," said David Bassuk, who leads consulting firm AlixPartners' global retail practice. "We're going to have a slow, painful back-to-school season."

...I guess my thought here when I look at retail, and housing, and jobs is that the cautious man has done ok here the last 24 months or so, we are still a long way from 14k, and it is becoming apparent that the massive stimulus was all that produced much of an impact. Unfortunately, there is that little conundrum of stimulus now, more problems in the near future...and this being a time of repudiation of debt.

@I-Man: Probably not deer, since we're still in the outskirts of the city, although neighbors have said they've seen a couple before roaming around, although not recently. I'll bet it's slugs having a little late night party out there at my tomatoes' expense. Didn't have this problem at all last year.

"Alan Greenspan, a former chairman of the Federal Reserve, weighed in on the state of the American economy, saying that it is currently going through a “pause” in a modest recovery, which feels like a “quasi-recession”. He gave warning that a double-dip recession could occur if house prices declined again."

"Every year the research firm Dalbar does a study that tries to quantify the impact of investor behavior on real-life returns by comparing investors' earnings to the average investment (using the S&P 500 as a proxy).

Anyone else think it was interesting to see Romer step down? Isn't it amazing that old Larry Summers continues to thrive within the administration, even though everything he touches turns to shit? It's incredible to me. He must be one "talented" bullshitter.

sorry man, was jumping around, I flipped to talking about angel investors, I spoke with one once and was trying to buy a practice that produced a million a year in rev, wasn't big enough for him to be interested.

I think this prosper is pretty neat, I like the idea of peer to peer lending.

Goldman Sachs has cut GDP forecasts for 2011 to 1.9% from 2.4%, via CNBC.Note: Early reports suggested Goldman had cut their projections for 2010 GDP growth. We have since been unable to confirm those numbers, and have removed them.

Trading in the 30y is very compressed lately. The range has been a low of 3.87% in the panics up to about 4.10%. Selling pre-auction isn't likely to break the top of that range unless Ben starts the helicopter.

The Question on Aug 6, 12:05 PM said:What does Main Street have to do to Wall Street to make it feel the same kind of pain that Main Street has been feeling for the last two years? What will it take to destroy the families, jobs, homes, hopes and incomes of those on Wall Street the way they have done to Main Street? How does Main Street take that away from Wall Street? I’m not advocating anything, just asking the question.

qussl3 on Aug 6, 12:29 PM said:@The Question: End mark to fantasy and the finance sector will get religion real quick.

- It hit a 50% fib retrace back to it's April high- It's REVERSING (3lb daily) as we speak- The move from the bottom "looks" ABC-ish- The price level it's at right now is the level it LAUNCHED at last July ('09), and it looks like it's struggling to hold on here

Oh that's great... When OBAMA sold everyone that bag of shit stimulus package last year, and then said he'd cut the deficit in half, it was based on OMB projections of something like 4%+ GDP growth annually for the next decade...

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